ANN ROONEY

AGE

DATE

PLACE

OUTCOME

LAST ATTACK

22

March 2 1979Friday nightmid-evening

Horsforth, Leeds

Survived

289 days

On Friday, March 2 1979, on the grounds of Horsforth College, Horsforth, just outside of Leeds,
during mid-evening, student Ann Rooney, 22, was attacked from behind. She was struck on the
head three times, leaving distinctive semicircular wounds, which Professor David Gee, who examined
her at Leeds General Infirmary, determined were likely caused by the circular head of a hammer.
She sustained no other injuries.

Ann Rooney described her attacked as being in his twenties, five feet ten inches in height, of broad
build, with dark curly hair and a drooping moustache. As well, she believed that before the attack she
had seen the man sitting in a dark-coloured Sunbeam Rapier. Peter Sutcliffe was, at the time, the
owner of a black Sunbeam Rapier, which had been flagged by the police numerous times going through
the red-light areas of Leeds and Bradford. On February 22 1979, when he had been flagged in
Moss Side, Manchester red-light area, he became a triple-area sighting which meant he was to be
actioned for an interview by police as a potential suspect due to the frequency of sightings in red-light
areas.

There were 850 Sunbeam Rapier and Alpine vehicles listed in the "punters index", twenty-one Sunbeam
Rapiers were cross-area sightings, meaning they had been flagged in two of the six red-light areas
under observation. Only three, including Peter Sutcliffe's vehicle, had been flagged as having
triple-area sightings. Unfortunately, the officers involved in the investigation into the attack on Ann
Rooney were unaware of the information and the importance of the data that was available in the
system.

Ann Rooney's attack was not included in the Ripper series based on the extremely narrow criteria
that it was believed that the hammer that caused her injuries was of a different size than the one
it was believed was being used by the Yorkshire Ripper.

Keith Hellawell was Assistant Chief Constable with the West Yorkshire police during the
Ripper inquiry but was not on the task force investigating the murders. Later he became the
Chief Constable of Cleveland, and then the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, and is currently
the "Drug Tsar", or, more formally, the UK Drugs Co-ordinator and Special Advisor to the Prime
Minister.

Hellawell continued to visit Peter Sutcliffe while he was in Broadmoor, and was convinced
that the catalogue of known Ripper victims was not complete. In 1992, according to Hellawell,
at the time Chief Constable of Cleveland, Peter Sutcliffe confessed to him to two additional attacks.
Sutcliffe confessed responsibility to the attack on Tracy Browne and to an attack on a young Irish
student in Bradford.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Barbara Mills, QC, decided at the time that it would not
be in the public interest to press charges against Peter Sutcliffe for the newly confessed attacks.

In 1996, the "Silent Victims: The Untold Story Of The Yorkshire Ripper" television programme
said that the attack Sutcliffe confessed to took place in 1979 at a Leeds college (newspaper accounts
in 1992 reported the attack had taken place in Bradford). The programme also showed a photo
of Trinity and All Saints College in Horsforth, Leeds. This suggests the attack they were referring to
was the one carried out on Ann Rooney on March 2 1979.

Keith Hellawell also said in the "Silent Victims" programme that the two attacks Sutcliffe
confessed to had both been very high on his list of probable attacks that could have been
Sutcliffe's responsibility.

(NOTE: Source material: Bilton, Yallop, The Times, "Silent Victims: The Untold Story Of The
Yorkshire Ripper" 1996 television programme.)